Washington Capitals 3, Winnipeg Jets 0 – Streaks start, streaks end. That is kind of the story for the Winnipeg Jets. In a 3-1 win over New Jersey the Jets extended their winning streak to three, snapped a four-game home losing streak, had Evander Kane see his eight-game point streak and four-game goal streak end, but extended their streak of scoring the opening goal of the game to seven. Against the Caps, that ended. It was also the first time this year the Jets have been shut out.
The Jets came out strong, outshooting Washington 15-5 in the first but were unable to beat Braden Holtby. As the game wore on Holtby got into a groove, was tracking the puck really well, and made difficult saves look easy. The second period was a complete reversal with Washington outshooting the Jets 13-4 and getting a goal from Matt Hendricks.
The shots in the third again favoured the Jets, 16-3, but the Caps scored on two of the three shots for a 3-0 win. Troy Brouwer made it 2-0 right off a faceoff and 52 seconds later Mike Ribeiro put home a rebound after Ondrej Pavelec made a great save on Alex Ovechkin.
Jets lost Anthony Peluso to a hand injury after a first period fight with Aaron Volpatti. They also lost Blake Wheeler for part of the game after he blocked a shot.
The game started a run of four straight against Southeast Division opponents for the Jets, who now play four straight on the road starting Tuesday in Florida. Then it's Thursday in Tampa and Friday back in Florida. The trip ends Sunday in New Jersey. All games on TSN Jets and TSN 1290.
"We played pretty hard," stated head coach Claude Noel. "We had lots of life in the first, established our forecheck, played a good North/South game. We got away from it in the second. But even down 1-0 going into the third we were in position to win the game. A face-off goal made it 2-0, a stumble made it 3-0."
The Jets were perfect on the penalty kill for the fourth straight game and sixth in the last seven. The power play was 0-for-3 but looked better than it has in a long time, getting six shots on a third period man advantage. "The power play was better," continued Coach Noel. "It created some chances. But it has to come around. It's a big part of the offensive game. It can affect morale, momentum, and the players on the power play take it personally."
Jets have won only one of their last six at MTS Centre, scoring only 10 goals, one an empty netter. Coach Noel concluded with this, "in this game I liked our will, we followed the game plan, played hard. In fact we played worse against New Jersey and won. Now we're going to Florida to win the games and score 45,000 power play goals."
